


The Unintended Consequences of Pranks (Or Damn it, Sera!)

by katling



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, injuries, my lack of knowledge of horses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sera needs to learn the difference between funny pranks and dangerous pranks. Dorian and Cullen need to learn how to communicate.</p>
<p>Written for the Cullrian mini-bang on tumblr for the prompt: Pranks</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unintended Consequences of Pranks (Or Damn it, Sera!)

**Author's Note:**

> I have very little idea about horses and their equipment and how it all works so my apologies in advance for any mistakes. Let's all just wave our hands and say, "Artistic license in the cause of getting Dorian and Cullen together" shall we? :D

The wobble of his desk was very slight but just enough that every time Cullen tried to write, he risked smearing the ink. He was focused though and didn’t want to stop to work out what was wrong and how to fix it until he finished this damn report and could hand it off to Josephine. The Ambassador had been asking for it for the past three days. But the wobble didn’t stop and it slowly but surely worked at his nerves until…

“Makers balls!” he shouted as the wobble of the desk made his pen judder across the page, smearing ink and making the words he’d been trying to write illegible.

The door opened before he could do or say anything else and Dorian sauntered in, looking amused. He’d clearly heard Cullen’s outburst.

“Maker’s _balls_?” the mage said with a smirk. “Isn’t breath more your style?”

Cullen glared at him but it just rolled over the other man. His glares had never stuck with Dorian and he would have been frustrated but somehow it was nice to know that there was someone other than Cassandra and Leliana who wasn’t cowed by him when he was in a foul mood. 

“This damn desk…” he growled as he got to his feet.

Dorian looked amused. “What has it done to offend you so?”

“It won’t stop… wobbling!”

Cullen gave the desk a small push as he tried to work out which leg had been tampered with. He knew _someone_ had to have tampered with it because it had been perfectly fine yesterday and he’d certainly done nothing to damage it. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice Dorian’s smile until the man began to chuckle.

“What?” he demanded, looking up with a frown.

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Dorian replied. “I passed Josephine earlier and she was a bit wild-eyed about something that had happened to her. Now you.” He raised an eyebrow. “I sense a pranking spree. _Especially_ since Solas was saying something about the Inquisitor and Sera lurking around Leliana’s roost.”

Cullen stared at the other man for a moment then he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I might have known,” he grumbled. The Inquisitor and Sera were thick as thieves and at times seemed to egg each other on with their silliness.

“Oh, come now, Commander,” Dorian said, closing the gap and placing a hand on Cullen’s arm. “A little wobble in your desk is fairly harmless, wouldn’t you say?”

Cullen sighed and relented. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Dorian said with mock-indignation. “I’m always right.”

Cullen smiled a little. “Always, eh? Because that move you made in yesterday’s game isn’t something I would classify as a right decision.”

“Pah!” Dorian waved a dismissive hand. “I was merely attempting to lull you into a false sense of security.”

“Of course you were,” Cullen said with a smirk. “That’s why I won.”

“Such sass,” Dorian said, looking pleased at Cullen’s response. “Hardly the sort of thing a respectable Commander should be doing.”

“Just as well I’m not respectable then.”

“You’re so respectable you make respectable people look disreputable.”

Cullen laughed. Dorian could always be guaranteed to make him laugh and relax. “I don’t think that actually made any sense, Dorian.”

“If course it did,” Dorian replied airily. “Now forget about your desk and come and play chess with me.”

Cullen looked tempted then he sighed. “I can’t, Dorian. I’ve got to get this report done. I was supposed to have it to Josephine three days ago.”

“And you’ll never finish it with your desk in this state,” Dorian said, wrapping his hand around Cullen’s elbow and pulling him gently towards the door. “Let one of your people sort out your desk while you play chess with me. When you get back, you’ll be in a much better mood and your desk will be fixed and your report will practically write itself.”

Cullen gave him a sceptical look but let himself be persuaded. In truth, these simple chess games with Dorian always left him a better mood for working. Spending time with Dorian in general did that. The chess games just gave them a good excuse so Cullen clung to them. 

“Alright,” he conceded, allowing Dorian to pull him out of the office. He paused long enough to issue some orders regarding his desk and then followed the mage down to the gardens.

*******

Cullen frowned as he read through Rylen’s report. He rather liked the reports he got from the Knight-Captain for their bluntness and brevity but every now and then Rylen let his creativity get the better of his common sense. The suggestions he was making in this report were certainly _interesting_ but he wasn’t sure they were the best use of Inquisition resources. Still, the ultimate decision would lie in the hands of the Inquisitor. All he had to do was make his recommendation.

He picked up his pen and dipped it in the inkwell. When he raised it again, he blinked and frowned. Whatever it was on the end of his pen, it wasn’t ink. His frown deepened and he sniffed at the goopy stuff on the nib of his pen. It smelled… sweet. He touched it with one finger and licked it off that finger. Then he sighed.

_Someone_ had replaced the ink in his inkwell with jam. Blackberry jam to be precise. While he actually rather liked blackberry jam, it wasn’t his usual choice of writing medium.

He shook his head and opened the drawer of his desk to pull out a spare inkwell, only to find that one had been filled with blackberry jam as well. Even the _other_ spare inkwell had been filled with jam and he barely remembered he had that one. How in the Maker’s name had Sera found it?

“You have the look of a man who doesn’t know whether to yell or laugh.”

Cullen looked up to find Dorian lounging in the doorway, looking amused.

“Sera has filled all my inkwells with blackberry jam,” Cullen said with exasperation.

Dorian burst out laughing. “That’s creative.”

“It’s damned annoying.”

Dorian laughed again and sauntered over. He took the inkwell out of Cullen’s hand and placed it next to the other two on the desk.

“Come. It’s lunchtime.” Dorian was still chuckling. “Tell your people to replace the inkwells and come and have lunch with the rest of us. You can glare at Sera and we can come up with dastardly ways to get back at her.”

Cullen sighed and looked down at the reports on his desk. “I… suppose that’s a good idea.”

“Of course it’s a good idea,” Dorian said with mock-indignation. “It’s one of mine. All of my ideas are good ones.”

Cullen laughed and raised an eyebrow as he got up and joined Dorian. “Is that so? How does that explain the small fire in the library the other day?”

“It was a good idea!” Dorian protested, laughing as he did so. “It was just the execution that was a bit off.”

“Is that what it was?” Cullen paused outside the door to give orders about his inkwells to one of the guards then they continued towards the main building. “Because fire in a library seems like a pretty bad idea to me.”

“You have such a narrow range with the whole good idea/bad idea thing,” Dorian complained amiably.

“I think I have an _excellent_ grasp of those concepts,” Cullen replied. “It’s why I don’t set things on fire in flammable places.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and pretended to look put out. “You’re such a stick in the mud.” 

“Of course I am,” Cullen replied as they headed into the main building to eat.

*****

The first hint Dorian had that something might be wrong was the grim expressions on the faces of the soldiers as they scurried around Skyhold. In actuality, it was as much the scurrying as the grim expressions that set his teeth on edge. By and large, the Inquisition’s soldiers did not _scurry_. They walked, they strode, they marched and occasionally they ran but they did not _scurry_. Nor did they tend to look like the wrath of the Maker was chasing after them.

Curiosity drove him out of the library and into the courtyard, where there was a distinct sense that the soldiers were hunkering down and hoping the storm would pass them by. Dorian sauntered over to a favoured corner where he knew he could hide out of sight and still hear… or _overhear_ the conversations between the guards at their posts.

“Has anyone heard what happened to Daffyd?”

“He’s been reassigned.”

“Where to?”

“The Hissing Wastes.”

“Ouch. All because he…”

There was a chorus of shushing noises that had Dorian’s eyebrow going up. What in the Maker’s name were they talking about?

“Don’t say it! Don’t even _whisper_ it. Anna made a comment and the next thing she knew _he_ came round the corner. She’s on night duty for the next three weeks and you know how much she hates night duty.”

Dorian pushed away from the wall and headed for the staircase that lead up to the battlements. _He_? The only ‘he’ Dorian knew who could alter patrol and assignment schedules was Cullen but if anything Cullen was a bit of a soft touch when it came to assignments. He hid it well but if someone wasn’t fond of night duty, they rarely found themselves on night duty. A messy break up would see both parties given assignments far from each other. A new pairing might find themselves with complimentary assignments. Cullen really was a soft squishy marshmallow wrapped in a grumpy growly exterior.

He was just about to knock on the door to Cullen’s office when one of the soldiers on patrol sidled over to him.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Ser,” the man whispered out of the side of his mouth with the sort of ludicrously shifty expression that nearly had Dorian laughing. “He’s really not in a good mood today.”

“Is that so?” Dorian whispered back, humouring the soldier. “May I ask why?”

Dorian was actually a little startled when the soldier looked scared, glancing over his shoulder towards the office door as though he expected Cullen to burst out, sword and shield at the ready, at any moment.

“I… I couldn’t say,” the soldier whispered even softer than before, forcing Dorian to lean in to hear over the normal ambient noise on the battlements. “But I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, Ser.”

“I’ll keep your warning in mind,” Dorian said, patting the soldier on the shoulder. Had all of Cullen’s soldiers gone barking mad? It certainly seemed so.

He continued on and knocked on the door perfunctorily before opening it and waltzing in as he normally did. Whatever was going on, he saw no reason to change his behaviour. When he got inside, he saw that Cullen was standing behind his desk, as per normal, and was wearing his armour, as per normal. What definitely _wasn’t_ normal was his hair.

Dorian stared. He couldn’t help it and he couldn’t stop himself. Where there was normally a perfectly coiffed hairstyle, dignified and serious, was a riot of blond curls that he quite honestly wanted to shove his hands into to see if they were as soft as they looked. Which was a bad thought to have and he knew it. That thought would only lead to other thoughts that he shouldn’t be having.

“…so that’s why Varric calls you Curly,” was what came out of his mouth instead of a few other things that had flitted through his mind. While that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, it was better than some of those other options.

The glare he got in return had some scorching heat behind it and suddenly the behaviour of the soldiers began to make sense. Clearly some less than wise souls had made an issue of their Commander’s hairstyle today and had paid the price for it.

“Dorian, I am not in the mood,” Cullen said through gritted teeth.

Dorian ignored the implicit warning and sauntered over to the desk, his eyes glued to Cullen’s delightful curls. Once there, he simply was unable to stop himself from reaching out and taking hold of one of the curls, stretching it out then letting go and watching it bounce back. As he did, Cullen blushed and some part of Dorian’s brain made note of that _and_ the fact that Cullen had allowed him to do it in the first place. He felt like both of those things were significant but now was neither the time nor place to consider them.

“This is not your normal style,” he said, his fingers twitching as he restrained himself from touching once again. Just the brief touch he’d had before had told him that Cullen’s curls were very soft and that made resisting his initial urge very difficult.

All the irritation seemed to flow out of Cullen and he sighed. “I can’t find my hair wax. Someone’s taken it.”

“Someone being Sera?” Dorian said with a small smile. “She does seem intent on tormenting you for some reason.”

Cullen gave another sigh. “That would be my guess and if you know _why_ she seems intent on annoying me, I’d love to know.”

“I wish I did know,” Dorian replied. “Unfortunately I fear that understanding Sera’s mind is beyond even my intellect.” He held up one finger. “However, I do have a solution for today’s problem. I’ll go and get the stuff I use on my hair. As long as you don’t mind smelling of orange and spices?”

“I… no, no, that would be… fine,” Cullen said with a sudden blush. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked bashful. “I… wouldn’t mind that at all.” That last was said with a low intensity and heat that belied the mundane nature of the words.

Dorian hesitated for a moment as the implications of what he’d offered and what Cullen had said sunk in. He felt the faint blush on his own face and quickly turned away. Him, blushing? That was preposterous! He didn’t blush. No, not at all. Not in the slightest.

“I’ll… uh… just go and get it,” he said, almost stumbling in his haste to get to the door. “Can’t have your soldiers thinking the apocalypse is coming. After all, it’s already here, isn’t it?”

Dorian opened the door and hurried through, closing it firmly behind him, almost losing Cullen’s quiet ‘Thank you’.

******

Dorian loathed mornings. It wasn’t simple dislike or hate, it was outright loathing. Frankly, he preferred not to greet the world before about, say, midday if entirely possible. He was more of a night owl and thus mornings were not his best time of the day. Which explained why it took coming face to long face with the Commander’s horse to realise that there were _five_ horses being saddled instead of the normal four.

“Good morning, Dorian.”

Dorian looked around to see Cullen standing there watching him with an amused look on his face.

“Hmph,” Dorian replied, absently patting the Commander’s horse on the nose and then giving the exact same pat-pat-pat to Cullen’s arm before navigating around both of them.

“Dorian is not a morning person, Commander,” Kaaras Adaar said with a grin. “I sometimes think that the only reason he hasn’t punched me in the face for waking him up this early is because I’m bigger than him.”

“He can’t reach,” the Iron Bull said, walking up and slinging an arm around Kaaras’ shoulders with a grin.

“I don’t think that’d stop him if he really wanted to,” Varric said, eying his pony dubiously. The dwarf would ride if he had to but he didn’t like it. In his opinion, feet were meant to be on the ground.

“True,” Kaaras replied, leaning into Bull for a moment before sliding out from under his arm and mounting his horse with the ease of long practise. “But by the time he’s awake and coordinated enough to try it with some success, he’s awake enough to remember he likes me.”

Cullen chuckled and swung up into his own saddle. He would never admit it but he was rather excited to be out on the road. His job was important and as such required his presence at Skyhold most of the time but this trip to the Temple of Dumat was… personal in many ways and he was glad the Inquisitor had agreed to let him come.

Samson had been a friend once, a confidant even, back in his early days in Kirkwall. They’d eventually fallen out, mostly over disagreements about the treatment of the mages in the Gallows, and Cullen couldn’t look back on that without wincing and feeling a sense of shame. Samson had been in the right back then, had been a good man trying to do his best under Meredith’s iron fist, had possessed the compassion, albeit under a rough exterior, that Cullen had lacked at the time. It was true that Cullen could point to reasons as to why he had been like that but that didn’t change what he’d done and allowed to be done.

That was why he was in such a state about Samson now. He could understand the man’s bitterness at being thrown away by the Templars not just once but twice but to throw his lot in with Corypheus? That was sheer madness. And worse, to drag their fellow Templars down with him was unforgivable. Cullen might have left the Order but that didn’t mean he thought they were without redemption. And wasn’t he himself proving that the withdrawal from lyrium wasn’t necessarily a death sentence or worse? 

He firmly drew himself out of the thoughts that would most certainly sour his mood and make him a bitter grumbling lion if he continued to dwell on them and found himself riding alongside Dorian. Who looked like he was sleeping in his saddle. Cullen eyed the mage with some amusement and his hand twitched where it held the reins of his horse.

“I wouldn’t,” the Inquisitor said in a low voice from behind him.

Cullen turned in his saddle and eyed the Vashoth mage curiously. “I wouldn’t do what?”

Kaaras nudged his horse until he was alongside Cullen on the opposite side to the one Dorian and his horse occupied. “Poke him. Don’t deny it. We’ve all been tempted.”

Cullen chuckled and looked a little sheepish. “Was I that obvious?”

“Yep,” Kaaras replied with a grin. “But as I said, we’ve all been there. There’s just something irresistible about a sleeping Dorian that makes you want to prod at him.”

“What does he do?”

“Wakes up mean,” Kaaras replied with a low chuckle. “He nearly scorched Sera’s hair off one time. I’m sure you know her phobia about magic so you can imagine how she reacted.”

“Ouch,” Cullen said with a wince. “That must have been difficult.”

Kaaras rolled his eyes. “I was hours peeling Sera off the metaphorical ceiling and the yowling between the two of them went on until Bull threatened to toss the pair of them into the next source of cold water he could find. They both bristled at that then settled down into quiet snarling.”

Cullen gave the Inquisitor a look of amused curiosity. “Are you aware you just compared them both to cats?”

The Vashoth mage grinned. “Yep. Dorian’s one of those purebred sleek-furred cats that rich people own and show off and Sera’s a feisty little alley cat with mangy fur and fleas.”

That last bit dragged a laugh out of Cullen and he quickly stifled it so that he wouldn’t wake Dorian. “I notice she’s not here to hear that.”

“Exactly. I’d be finding frogs in my bedroll or worse for weeks if she was.”

“I might not mind frogs in my bed,” Cullen said dryly.

Kaaras gave a quiet laugh. “I’ve heard about what she’s been doing. The jam in the ink wells was a good one.”

“I don’t suppose you know _why_ she’s doing this or is it just random?”

“I think she only pranks people she likes,” Kaaras said with a shrug. “So I wouldn’t worry too much.”

“Wonderful,” Cullen said dryly.

Kaaras grinned at him then nudged his horse forward to ride next to Bull. The two Qunari… well, Qunari and Vashoth since Kaaras had been quite firm on that point since day one… were an imposing sight at the front of their little group and Cullen suspected most people who might view them as an easy target would change their minds at that sight. Which was undoubtedly why they were doing it. Kaaras might act like a large laconic lump of muscle most of the time but he had a shrewd and canny mind underneath that façade.

Cullen turned his attention back to Dorian, who looked like he might be returning to the land of the living if the small grimaces and muttering were any indication. In fact, within a few minutes, Dorian raised his head and looked around. When his eyes came to rest on Cullen, he frowned.

“You.”

“Me,” Cullen replied, trying not to laugh at the bewildered expression on the other man’s face.

“Why are you here?”

“We’re going to the Temple of Dumat to get Samson,” Cullen said patiently. “The Inquisitor agreed to let me come along for this.”

He could almost see all the cogs and wheels start working in Dorian’s mind as he finally fully woke up.

“Ah, yes, of course,” Dorian said. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “And how long are you going to tease me for about my dislike for mornings?”

Cullen chuckled. “I haven’t decided yet.” He gave the mage a sidelong glance. “The Inquisitor warned me not to poke you.”

Dorian affected a wounded expression. “You too? Why does everyone I know want to assault me before I wake up?”

Cullen now laughed. “Because you make it so irresistible.”

“Well, I _am_ rather irresistible,” Dorian said with a sniff. “But that doesn’t mean I need to be poked and prodded by all and sundry.”

“According to the Inquisitor, your reaction on being prodded makes that quite obvious,” Cullen said with a smile.

Dorian snorted and looked around. They had just emerged into the Hinterlands from the path through the Frostbacks, which meant he’d been snoozing for quite some time. He’d managed to avoid the morning chill of the mountains so he couldn’t be too upset about that, though missing the time and opportunity to talk to Cullen undisturbed by the many people who came in seeking his attention in his office was something of a disappointment.

“Yes, well,” he said, getting back on track. “Sera should know better than to poke a mage with an arrowhead.”

Cullen was about to reply when a fennec fox darted out from the underbrush next to the road and right under the hooves of his horse. The horse whinnied and reared but he was a good enough horseman to keep it under control and all would have been well if his saddle hadn’t abruptly _shifted_ underneath him, throwing him off-balance. The sudden movement startled the horse even further and it almost writhed underneath him before bolting. Cullen felt his right foot slip from the stirrup and his left foot also slipped but unlike the right, it became trapped in the stirrup. A sudden buck from the agitated horse threw him completely from the saddle with his left foot still trapped tightly by the stirrup and when the horse took off, he was, perforce, dragged along with it.

The startled reaction of Cullen’s horse set off Dorian’s horse but he was an experienced horseman and soon had it under control. Just in time to see Cullen thrown from the saddle of his fractious beast. He feared the worst but quickly realised that Cullen was somehow still caught on the saddle. He lunged for the horse’s bridle but missed as the horse took off at a gallop with a cursing Cullen in tow.

Dorian didn’t hesitate and spurred his horse in pursuit. He could hear the others following but they quickly fell behind as the terrain become rougher. Neither Adaar, Bull nor Varric were good enough riders to keep up under the circumstances.

It seemed an almost interminable time before Dorian was able to catch up to Cullen’s horse and grab its reins. The horse resisted for a moment but seemed almost relieved to have someone tell it what to do and Dorian was able to bring them to a halt. He quickly dismounted and made his way over to the other side of Cullen’s horse. The man in question was unconscious, dead weight attached to the still-nervy horse’s saddle, and Dorian could see what had happened – Cullen’s foot was jammed into the stirrup in an awkward way that certainly spoke of bad sprain and associated bruising and possibly even a broken ankle.

He didn’t even bother trying to get Cullen’s foot loose and instead started working on the straps that secured the saddle to the horse. That was when he found the cause behind the accident. The straps weren’t broken but they were stretched almost to breaking and Dorian knew enough to recognise they’d been tampered with deliberately. 

For a moment white-hot rage flowed through him at the thought of deliberate sabotage directed at the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces but then he hesitated. Sera had been tormenting Cullen for several weeks now. Could this be her work? He’d travelled with her enough to know her knowledge of horses and their accoutrements began and ended at ‘this is how you get on a horse and this is how you ride one… _badly_ ’. She probably thought a stretched or broken strap would do nothing more than result in Cullen sliding unglamorously – and to her mind, hilariously – off the side of his horse. Indeed, that was entirely likely to be what would have happened… if not for the fennec fox.

Either way though, this prank was downright dangerous and he intended to have several words with Sera when they got back to Skyhold.

He quickly tethered both horses and then gently extricated Cullen’s foot from the stirrup. He wasn’t skilled enough with the healing arts to tell if it was broken but it was already swelling and he knew just enough about healing to know that he shouldn’t remove Cullen’s boot. The boot would provide support until they could get back to civilisation. At that thought, he looked around.

“Well, if someone could point me in the direction of civilisation, that would be just dandy,” he muttered to himself.

They’d broken out of the trees and he hadn’t even noticed that they’d climbed up into the hills. No wonder his horse had been able to catch up with Cullen’s beast. While he and the Commander were of much the same height, Cullen had a warrior’s build and wore armour and his weapons, combine that with his awkward position hanging as dead weight from the saddle, it was no wonder his horse had tired quicker than Dorian’s.

A low groan broke him out of his thoughts and he turned his attention back to Cullen. He braced his hands on either side of the warrior’s head to stop him from moving too much.

“Whrr?” Cullen mumbled, his eyes unfocused. “D’r’n?”

“Don’t move, Commander,” Dorian said. “I don’t think you’ve got anything worse than a knock to the head and a damaged ankle – which is something of a miracle, all things being equal – but I’d rather we didn’t find out the hard way.”

Cullen blinked and looked confused. “Wha…?”

Dorian chuckled. “Let’s try that again. How does your head feel?”

“Hurts,” Cullen mumbled, closing his eyes.

Dorian tapped him on the cheek until he opened his eyes again with a slightly unfocused but irritated look. “There we go. No sleeping just yet, Commander. What else hurts?”

Cullen frowned and grumbled then finally said, “Foot. Leg. Shoulder.”

“Yes, well, the foot and leg make sense,” Dorian said. “You got your foot caught in the stirrup. Now what’s this about your shoulder?”

He let go of Cullen’s head and prodded gently first at Cullen’s left shoulder and then, when he got no reaction, his right shoulder. That definitely got a reaction. Cullen let out a high-pitched whine and tried to curl away.

“Easy, Commander,” Dorian said, catching Cullen and easing him back down again. “Sorry about that. Just needed to work out what’s wrong.”

“Cull’n,” the warrior slurred, a small frown making his forehead crinkle.

“Yes, that’s your name, Commander. Well done,” Dorian said absently as he looked around and considered what he should do.

“No,” Cullen replied, one hand groping at Dorian’s arm and finally coming to rest clutching at his robes. He looked faintly hurt. “You… n’v’r call me Cull’n. Want y’to.”

Dorian stared down at the man lying on the ground. It was true. He went out of his way to not call Cullen by his name. It was too dangerous. He’d done an excellent job thus far of ignoring his feelings for the man and part of his tactics was using the man’s title instead of his name. It placed some well needed distance between them and reminded Dorian that as much as he might want Cullen, the Commander of the Inquisition’s Forces was off-limits. Cullen had worked too hard to get where he was, he didn’t need that hard work undermined by too close an association with the _evil Tevinter magister_.

“I don’t, do I?” he said in as neutral a tone as he could manage.

“Want you to,” Cullen said more clearly. Despite that, his voice was faint and had a floating quality to it that had Dorian decidedly worried. “Want to hear you say my name. Want _you_.”

Dorian blinked at that last sentence and stared down at Cullen. “What?” he said without thinking.

“Want you,” Cullen repeated, sounding more and more detached. “Have for a while. Want to kiss you and touch you and fuck you. Want to bend you over my desk. Or the War Table. Just want you.”

Dorian stared at the Commander with what he was sure was a gobsmacked expression. The man who stammered over the slightest flirtatious remark out of Dorian’s mouth was saying things like _that_? He was stunned and shocked and… just a little bit turned on. Honestly the idea of being fucked by Cullen over the Commander’s desk or the War Table was a fantasy he’d done his best not to think about too much. 

(Except very late at night when he was tired and physically worn out but still couldn’t get to sleep. A quick wank usually worked wonders on those occasions but if he was tired enough and exhausted enough, it needed to be something that would just _work_ without effort to get him off and those two scenarios… oh, Maker, they just _worked_ for him.)

He swallowed hard, forcing down the mental images that were threatening. “You definitely have a head injury there, my dear Commander,” he said as lightly as he could manage.

Yes, that was it. Cullen wasn’t in his right mind and what he was saying meant nothing. He couldn’t _possibly_ mean what he was saying. That was just absurd.

Cullen pouted. “Mean it.”

Dorian swallowed again, as much at the pout as at the words. Who knew that Cullen pouting at him was going to fall into the ranks of memories he tucked away for another time? Thankfully he was saved from having to find a way to reply by the sound of the Inquisitor’s voice.

“Don’t move,” he said, cupping Cullen’s cheek with one hand. He then stood and looked around. “We’re over here!” he shouted.

It took a few more shouts back and forth before the Inquisitor and the others homed in on where they were and then it was a flurry of questions and answers and rigging together a stretcher that could be carried by two of the horses before they headed back towards Skyhold. Dorian deliberately hung back, citing the excuse of an exhausted horse, and watched pensively as the Inquisitor fussed over Cullen. It was a sight that might have amused him at any other time – the enormous Vashoth mage fussing like an old woman – but he was too caught up in his thoughts.

“Alright there, Vint?”

“What?” Dorian gave a start and blinked owlishly up at Bull. “Oh, yes, I’m fine.”

“Don’t look fine.”

“Well, I am, you great lump of lard,” Dorian said with annoyance then he sighed. “I… apologise, Bull., but I’m really not in the mood for any of your Ben-Hassrath games. If you have something to say, say it or just leave me alone.”

Bull nodded amiably and then arched an eyebrow at him. “He said something that’s got you all out of sorts, didn’t he?”

Dorian sighed and scrubbed his face with one hand. “He has a head injury. I’m hardly going to hold anything he said against him.”

“In my experience, head injuries tend to get people telling the truth.”

Dorian was well aware of that. Head injuries lowered inhibitions and people babbled whatever was on their mind because their higher brain functions weren’t able to make them stop.

“It can’t be true,” he said with a mix of determination and despair.

“That Cullen’s been mooning after you for months?” Dorian stared at him in disbelief and Bull chuckled. “Figured that’s what he might have talked about when he was out of his mind. Reckon you’re on his mind quite a bit from what I’ve seen.”

Dorian was still staring at Bull with his mouth agape. “I… you... you cannot be serious.”

Bull shook his head and chuckled again. “You two are the most oblivious people I’ve seen in a long time. The Boss has been wanting to lock you two up in a small room until you both got a clue for quite some time now.”

“I… he…” Dorian swallowed and tried to regain some of his composure. Cullen had _meant_ what he said? He wanted to scoff at the very idea but… Bull was Ben-Hassrath. If he said something was so, it more than likely was.

Bull clapped him gently on the shoulder. “Reckon the next move is going to be yours, Vint. He’s either not going to remember whatever it was he said to you or he is and he’s going to be embarrassed about it. You’ll have the make the next move.”

That thought washed over Dorian like a bucket of ice water. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s… the Commander of the Inquisition!” Dorian said indignantly. “He can’t be seen getting involved with… with _me_.”

“Why not?” Bull said with more than a hint of scorn.

“And if your answer includes any self-disparaging remarks about your origins, I’m going to come over there and smack you,” Adaar chimed in rather dryly. He took in Dorian’s sudden look of panic and rolled his eyes. “He’s passed out but he’ll be fine. I’ve got enough of a grasp of the healing magics to be able to say that much.”

Dorian glared at both of them. “You’ve heard the things they say about me. I will not have his leadership undermined.”

Adaar snorted. “Yes, I’ve heard what gossiping Chantry sisters with too much time on their hands and not enough to do have to say and I’ve told Mother Giselle that if they have time to gossip, then I have work they could be doing instead.” The Vashoth mage looked amused. “She wasn’t terribly pleased with me.” He shrugged. “I’ll live.”

“We’ve also heard what the troops have to say about you and the Commander and trust me, they’re not rubbishing you or think less of Cullen because he’s friends with you,” Bull added.

“So now that we’ve pulled that particular rug out from underneath your feet, what other excuse are you going to come up with?” Adaar asked, looking both sympathetic and amused.

Dorian shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “I have no desire for a simple roll in the hay,” he said tartly but was cut off by snorts from both Bull and the Inquisitor.

“This is Cullen we’re talking about here,” Adaar said with an odd gentleness. “You know him better than I do and even I know that he’s not the casual fling kind of man.”

“Besides the looks he’s been giving you when you’re not looking aren’t the ‘I want a quick fuck’ kind of looks,” Bull said bluntly. “He definitely wants more than that, Vint.”

Dorian simply floundered for a moment then Adaar took pity on him.

“I don’t know what he said to you, Dorian, but I get the impression it wasn’t unwelcome and that you want him as much as he wants you. Nobody in Skyhold is going to disapprove or they’ll answer to me so…”

“Go get him,” Bull finished with a grin.

Dorian stared at them mutely, completely and utterly unable to come up with anything to say. It was a terrible idea, a _horrible_ idea, one that could cost him one of his dearest friends in the Inquisition. _Unless Cullen was telling the truth_ , his mind whispered at him. 

And there it was. If Cullen had been telling the truth than this could be the best idea in the world. But Dorian wasn’t very good at taking these kinds of risks, the kind that put his heart on the line. He had been once and it… hadn’t worked out very well. He’d had his heart broken… no, not broken, _shattered_ and it had _hurt_ so much. And he wasn’t sure he could do that again.

But this was _Cullen_ , who didn’t have a deceptive bone in his body, who was a fierce warrior and yet was honourable and gentle and kind, who blushed delightfully whenever Dorian flirted and teased and glanced at him from under his eyelashes rather coyly…

Dorian blinked. Had Cullen been _flirting_ … with _him_? In a shy, uncertain, rather subtle way? He went over all of their interactions, barely noticing when Bull chuckled and clapped him gently on the shoulder before riding off to join Adaar. He recalled all the times he’d teased and Cullen had blushed and ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck before giving him those shy coy looks and saying something stuttery but… flirty.

He _had_. Cullen _had_ been flirting with him. And he’d missed it. He’d been so caught up in his own doubts and insecurities and his absolute certainty that this… whatever it was… was one-sided that he’d utterly failed to see what was right under his nose. Of course it didn’t help that Cullen had been so subtle about it. He hadn’t been expecting subtle. Oh, he was _used_ to it. You had to be subtle in Tevinter if your preferences lay the way his did but he hadn’t been expecting it from good old Fereldan _Cullen_.

He stared at the man lying on the stretcher. Of all the times for Cullen to knock himself unconscious and be unable to talk to about this. But he could be patient. Well, he wasn’t very good at patience really but he had no choice this time. But they were going to talk about this.

******

Five days. Five interminable days he waited as Cullen lay in a room in the healer’s wing. Two days to overcome the concussion and three more because the healers had seen right through his protestations that he’d keep off his badly sprained ankle and demanded he stay until they were more comfortable with him putting any weight on it.

Dorian hadn’t visited. He’d wanted to but he didn’t think he’d be able to manage it without talking about the druffalo in the room and that was not a conversation to be had in the healer’s wing. So instead he’d tracked down Sera and given her a piece of his mind about her little pranks, demanding an immediate end to them. To her credit, she’d been genuinely upset that she’d hurt Cullen. She hadn’t intended that, just to have a laugh, and Dorian had been right in his speculation that her lack of knowledge of all things horse other than how to sit on them and ride them had been at the basis of the near-disastrous prank.

He’d also reorganised the Commander’s office. A quiet word with one of the healers attending the Commander had assured him that Cullen wouldn’t be climbing any ladders for the next week at least. So he’d commandeered some of the soldiers and reorganised Cullen’s office. Frankly he would have liked to convince Cullen to move into a room in the building proper (or even Dorian’s room but maybe that was too soon) but he knew the man wouldn’t. He’d want to work and walking to and fro, even with the aid of crutches, would not be good for his ankle. But with a little shifting and shoving, he had a narrow bed tucked behind the bookcases to provide some privacy and a stern word to the soldiers meant that there would be no barging in on the Commander for at least the next couple of weeks.

He was standing in the middle of the room, surveying his handiwork when he heard the tapping of wood against stone and the door opened. Cullen was standing on the other side, leaning heavily on a crutch and with Cassandra hovering beside him.

“I’m _fine_ , Cassandra,” he said, shooting an irritated look at the Seeker then he turned and saw Dorian. “Dorian!”

From the rather spectacular shade of crimson that was now adorning Cullen’s cheeks, Dorian just knew that the Commander remembered what he’d said in the forest. He could feel his own cheeks turning a little pink and he found himself unable to say anything other than a somewhat strangled, “Commander.”

Cassandra looked at the two of them and snorted. She gave Cullen a gentle nudge and rolled her eyes. 

“You two are ridiculous. Just _talk_ to each other.” 

She made a disgusted noise and threw her hands in the air before turning and stomping away.

Cullen watched her go then limped into the office and closed the door. He looked around at the changes and then finally his gaze came to rest on Dorian.

“I… uh…” He broke off, his hand rising to rub the back of his neck.

“Did you mean it?” Dorian blurted out. What was _wrong_ with him? He didn’t blurt things out like that! He was suave and calm and collected. He was the one who made other people blurt things out.

The blush spread down Cullen’s neck and Dorian spared a moment to wonder just how far down the colour went before Cullen cleared his throat and leaned a little more on the crutch. Dorian blinked and bustled forward.

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be standing around. Sit down, foolish man, before you make that ankle worse.”

He nudged and chivvied Cullen towards the chair behind the desk. For his part, Cullen let himself be fussed over though he couldn’t stop staring at Dorian. His memory of what had happened after his horse had started dragging him had come back to him in bits and pieces and one of those pieces was what he’d said to Dorian. He’d been mortified when he’d remembered that but a rather odd conversation he’d had with Adaar that had been full of half-sentences and meaningful looks had actually given him some hope. But right now, he wasn’t sure what to make of Dorian’s behaviour.

Still, sitting down was nice. Getting out of the healer’s wing had been even nicer but the trip over, even with Cassandra’s hovering, had been exhausting. To find that Dorian had apparently made sure he would be able to work without damaging his ankle any further was… nice.

He caught Dorian’s hand where it was fussing over the crutch. The mage went utterly still and he stared resolutely at the top of the desk. Cullen licked his lips and swallowed down the terror that was threatening. What if he was wrong? What if Dorian’s flirting had just been his normal behaviour and he didn’t mean anything by it? 

He gave Dorian’s hand a little tug until the man looked at him. Dorian’s face was devoid of all expression but his eyes! Oh, his eyes were full of everything his expression lacked. Hope, fear, anticipation, desire. It was those eyes that gave Cullen the courage to continue.

“I meant it,” he said quietly.

Dorian’s eyes widened and a fragile hope showed on his face. “You… did?”

Cullen nodded. “I did.” He blushed. “All of it.”

He gave another gentle tug on Dorian’s hand and now the mage closed the gap between them. Cullen reached up and slid a hand around the back of Dorian’s neck, drawing him down so that he could kiss him. The kiss was gentle and positively chaste and it drew a soft wondering noise from Dorian. He pressed closer, not wanting the kiss to end, and when Cullen pulled him onto his lap, he went willingly.

When they finally separated, Dorian rested his forehead against the other man’s and smiled. “Cullen,” he said softly.

Cullen smiled. “You used my name.”

“So I did,” Dorian said with a chuckle. He climbed gracefully off Cullen’s lap and held out a hand, a wicked light glinting in his eyes. “And you need some rest.”

Cullen laughed, seeing right through Dorian’s ploy, but he got to his feet and let the mage support him over to the bed. Once there however, he grinned and tumbled them both down onto the bed with only the slightest of winces that turned to laughter at Dorian’s indignant squawking. He soothed him with a kiss and pressed his forehead gently against Dorian’s again, sighing happily.

“Maybe I should thank Sera,” he murmured as they settled onto the narrow bed practically wrapped around each other.

Dorian snorted. “Do not encourage her. She nearly got you killed.”

“Maybe not then,” Cullen said, nuzzling the shorn side of Dorian’s hair and making the mage hum his approval.

“What you should do…” Dorian kissed him. “Is put some of what you said into practice, Cullen.”

Cullen blushed but he smirked as well, the movement pulling at the scar that bisected his upper lip in ways that just begged for Dorian to kiss and lick.

“I’m not really in a position to fuck you over my desk or the war table.”

Hearing those words come out of Cullen’s mouth when he was coherent and lucid sent Dorian’s libido into overdrive and he shoved at Cullen until he was lying on his back on the bed with Dorian straddling his hips.

“Well then,” he purred, leaning down to kiss the man again. “Perhaps you should let me do all the work this time.”


End file.
